you, quick; and you, too, Harley."

"Nay," said Lady Lansmere, in the same tone, "Harley must stay, for my
design is not at present upon destroying your matrimonial happiness,
whatever it may be later. It is a design so innocent that my son will be
a partner in it."

Here the countess put her lips to Harley's ear, and whispered. He
received her communication in attentive silence; but when she had done,
pressed her hand, and bowed his head, as if in assent to a proposal.

In a few minutes the three ladies and Leonard were on their road to the
neighbouring cottage.

Violante, with her usual delicate intuition, thought that Leonard and
Helen must have much to say to each other; and (ignorant, as Leonard
himself was, of Helen's engagement to Harley) began already, in the
romance natural to her age, to predict for them happy and united days in
the future. So she took her stepmother's arm, and left Helen and Leonard
to follow.

"I wonder," she said musingly, "how Miss Digby became Lord L'Estrange's
ward. I hope she is not very rich, nor very high-born."

"La, my love," said the good Jemima, "that is not like you; you are not
envious of her, poor girl?"

"Envious! Dear mamma, what a word! But don't you think Leonard and Miss
Digby seem born for each other? And then the recollections of their
childhood--the thoughts of childhood are so deep, and its memories so